Replacing working lights?

[jmsieglaff]

I've read here and elsewhere about replacing bulbs after a period of time. The lumens drop and our eyes can't tell but the plants can. I hate throwing away good bulbs without having a legit guideline. I've read after two seasons, but is there a better guideline by hours? Perhaps the bulb quality matters too, I have 6400k T5 high output 4' florescent rated to 5000 initial lumens. Last year I also added a 2 bulb T12 (one aquarium/plant bulb and one 6400k daylight bulb) as I had more plants. I appreciate any info, especially any studies related to bulb lumen output vs hours used.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

I've read here and elsewhere about replacing bulbs after a period of time. The lumens drop and our eyes can't tell but the plants can. I hate throwing away good bulbs without having a legit guideline. I've read after two seasons, but is there a better guideline by hours? Perhaps the bulb quality matters too, I have 6400k T5 high output 4' florescent rated to 5000 initial lumens. Last year I also added a 2 bulb T12 (one aquarium/plant bulb and one 6400k daylight bulb) as I had more plants. I appreciate any info, especially any studies related to bulb lumen output vs hours used.

I have read where people use them for three or 4 years.
I have used them for this amount of time.
But I have a T 12 in the kitchen if the lights play out there I remove the lights for the grow lamps and put them in the kitchen.
The grow lamps are gone now.
This is also the reason I went to the 100 watt CFL lights.
I like the bright daylight color and if a light goes out in the house I will shuffle lights.

Remember lumens are measured in visible light to people not plants.

Worth

[Salsacharley]

My T5's are supposed to be good for 5000 hours.

[kurt]

Working in construction over the years that question has come up a lot.A lot of building maintenance personal will have a scheduled lighting monitoring tests with handheld meters for their building tenants(i.e.office space cubicles,schools,federal requirements).Architects,engineers make it a point to ensure lighting efficiency for health and economic reasons.For us growers you can get growlight meters fairly cheap(oops inexpensive).

https://www.growerssupply.com/farm/s...;pg103400.html

[Cole_Robbie]

Yeah, I was going to say, meters are not that expensive.

[Greatgardens]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Yeah, I was going to say, meters are not that expensive.

I saw a couple of posts about using (Android) cell phone apps for light monitoring. I'm definitely going to check into that. I *believe* that some of them show the output in different color bands. My old meter basically just showed lumens and was not terribly useful for seed starting.

-GG

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by Greatgardens

I saw a couple of posts about using (Android) cell phone apps for light monitoring. I'm definitely going to check into that. I *believe* that some of them show the output in different color bands. My old meter basically just showed lumens and was not terribly useful for seed starting.

-GG

If you find an app that does that, please do post it here. I'm not sure how the technical side of that could even work, but I do not know much about the inner workings of a smartphone aka pocket computer.

[Worth1]

I have the app on my phone but got confused to say the very least.

Worth

[Greatgardens]

I found the app that was referenced -- called the rgb light sensor app for Android. Your phone must have an rgb sensor for the color feature to work. My Galaxy S5 does not show color, so mine only shows lux. Well, good enough reason to get a new phone! ;-)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...htsensor&hl=en

-GG

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Greatgardens

I found the app that was referenced -- called the rgb light sensor app for Android. Your phone must have an rgb sensor for the color feature to work. My Galaxy S5 does not show color, so mine only shows lux. Well, good enough reason to get a new phone! ;-)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...htsensor&hl=en

-GG

I don't even remember what Galaxy I have but the app on mine shows color.
I just dont know what all the abbreviations are or mean.
What the heck is a lux and 10xlux I mean I can read about it but dont know how to relate it to what I need.
If I point it to the surface of my seed beds the fc is 350 and the X lux is off the scale the color is around 5000k and sometime off the charts there.

Worth

[Greatgardens]

I'll see if I can find some added info. I have done a little research, and supposedly the Galaxy S5 does have an RGB light sensor, so it may be that it just doesn't work with this model. It is Beta, so may be just something that yet needs to be fixed. But for sure an interesting app.

-GG